by Daisy Styles
‘B … b … but …’ stunned Nora spluttered.
‘I’d help you do it,’ he said with confidence.
Nora almost laughed. ‘Where would we hide a pig? And,’ she said as an afterthought, ‘and what would Maggie eat on her wedding day?’
Continuing in a calm voice, as if he were talking about the weather rather than a criminal act, Peter said, ‘We’d have to find Maggie an alternative.’
‘An alternative pig?’ Nora gasped.
Peter gave a solemn nod.
‘It’d have to be a well-fed one,’ Nora said in all seriousness. ‘Otherwise there wouldn’t be enough to go round.’
‘More to the point you would have to promise not to fall in love with the new pig.’
Nora looked at the young man and started to giggle. ‘I don’t usually fall in love with pigs!’
‘I should hope not!’ he joked.
Nora had another troublesome thought. ‘It’ll cost money to get a replacement.’
‘That shouldn’t be a problem; I’ve got money put by,’ he confidently assured her.
Nora gazed into Peter’s sweet, scarred face with undisguised adoration. ‘Would you really do that for me?’
Peter squeezed her hands tightly. ‘Nora, I would move heaven and earth for you.’
Sitting side by side on the edge of the hospital bed, the two of them could barely take their eyes off each other; the tumultuous passion that flooded through Nora’s body made her feel light-headed and breathless. She knew with the certainty that night follows day that she had begun to fall for this brave, damaged and quite wonderful young man since the moment she had first laid eyes on him. And he in return knew that Nora was not only his saviour but the love of his life. Before they could stop themselves they fell into each other’s arms.
‘I want to look after you,’ Peter whispered into her hair, which had tumbled free of her cap and fell in wild curls around her radiant face.
‘I want to look after you too,’ she murmured.
‘Are you sure?’ he whispered. ‘I’m not a whole man,’ he reminded her.
‘You’re all the man I need,’ Nora whispered and for the first time in her life she kissed a man on the lips.
The Bomb Girls, enjoying a welcome break in the Phoenix canteen a few days later, were taken entirely by surprise to see Arthur Leadbetter walking in pushing baby Stevie, now seven months old, in a pram.
‘What the ’ell are you doin’ ’ere, stranger?’ one of the older women called out.
‘Just thought I’d pop by to keep you all in line!’ Arthur joked in the way they all remembered with affection.
‘It’ll take more than a man and a babby to keep us lot under control,’ another woman teased, as she hurried to give Arthur a quick kiss on the cheek.
Grinning with pleasure, Arthur quickly joined his old friends gathered around the table, drinking tea and having a smoke. After politely shaking Julia by the hand and asking how she was, Arthur wasted no time in handing a gurgling Stevie over to Kit, who’d looked after the little boy when Arthur had been hospitalized after his accident.
‘What an unexpected surprise!’ delighted Kit said as she cuddled Stevie.
‘I had to transport some explosive material to a factory near Burnley,’ Arthur explained. ‘I thought whilst I was so close I’d pop in and see my old pals. It’s been a long time since Stevie’s had a cuddle from any of his “aunties”,’ he joked.
‘How did you get Stevie down here?’ Nora inquired.
‘I tucked him up in a cardboard box and settled him in the van’s passenger seat,’ Arthur replied. ‘He was as good as gold – slept most of the way down.’
‘He’s grown so big since we last saw him,’ Kit observed.
‘I can’t keep up with the boy now that he’s on solids,’ Arthur said with a proud smile. ‘He’s got the appetite of a horse.’
On hearing this, Nora offered Stevie a chip, which she’d cooled by blowing on it. ‘Get that down you,’ she giggled.
Stevie waved the chip in the air like a conductor waves his baton, after which he solemnly ate it.
‘Here, have a cuddle,’ Kit said to Rosa. ‘If he jumps on my stomach again I might go into labour,’ she chuckled.
Rosa couldn’t wait to get her hands on Stevie, whom she’d loved at first sight when she’d seen him some months previously fast asleep in his pram.
‘Ciao, mio carissimo ragazzo,’ she murmured as she held him close and inhaled the sweet baby smell of his soft skin.
Peering over the top of Stevie’s head, she caught sight of Arthur watching her cuddling his son.
‘How are you, Rosa?’ he inquired.
Rosa’s heart gave a sudden and rather unexpected lurch as she gazed at Arthur: tall and lean, with expressive blue eyes, a generous smiling mouth and a mop of thick blond hair, this lovely man was someone whose company she’d really enjoyed. A man who was looking surprisingly handsome today considering the amount of agonizing grief he’d lived through.
When he’d worked in the Phoenix, Arthur could have had any of the attractive young women but that had never been his way. He’d never flirted or pulled rank on anybody, and had eyes only for his beautiful wife, Violet. Rosa realized yet again how much she missed him, and, more to the point, how much she missed little Stevie, who was presently tugging the turban off her head. As her wonderful long dark hair fell in waves to her waist, Stevie grabbed it and wound it around his chubby little fists.
In answer to Arthur’s question, Rosa shyly replied, ‘I’m well, thank you.’
Feeling a self-conscious blush spread across her cheeks, Rosa was grateful to Stevie for sucking her hair and thereby distracting her.
‘Cattivo!’ she laughed. ‘Naughty little boy,’ she teased as she gave him a kiss.
When the hooter blew, Julia immediately got to her feet and, after bidding Arthur goodbye, she hurried back to the filling shed. When she’d gone, Arthur gave the girls a knowing look.
‘Any friendlier with the newcomer?’ he asked with a teasing wink.
Maggie and Nora immediately started talking eagerly about all that Julia had done for them and how much nicer she was these days, whilst Rosa remained distinctly silent.
‘Well, I’m glad to hear things have improved,’ Arthur answered evenly as he threw Rosa a questioning look.
Kit rose to her feet with an effort. ‘Are you staying tonight?’ she asked, as she supported her very large tummy, over which she now wore a smock.
‘If me and the boy can find somewhere to sleep I’d love to,’ Arthur replied.
‘You know there’s always a bed and a meal for you two at our house,’ Kit assured him. ‘Billy would love to see his little playmate again.’
Rosa gave an inward sigh as she too rose: if Arthur and Stevie were staying at Kit’s, it was more than likely she wouldn’t see either of them again this visit. As if reading her thoughts, Kit turned to the girls. ‘Why don’t you all come round to us tonight?’
With piles of sewing to do, Maggie and Nora declined Kit’s kind offer, but Rosa eagerly accepted.
‘Yes, please!’ she exclaimed before she could stop herself.
‘See you later, then,’ Arthur said, as he gently popped protesting Stevie back in his pram, then hurried off to the factory office to report to Mr Featherstone.
That evening was one of the happiest that Rosa had spent in a long time. Briefly she forgot her troubles; her anguish and guilt over her missing brother, her recent hurt about Roger’s insensitivity, the anger she felt towards Julia, which seemed to be getting worse, and the sense of despair and hopelessness that she carried around in her heart from the moment she woke up to the moment she closed her eyes and fell asleep.
It was simply wonderful being with the babies; cheeky Billy, who treated Stevie like a little brother or alternatively a toy to drag about. Stevie didn’t seem to mind; as long as Billy was close he was happy. Rosa could have kissed and cuddled the baby boy who was so like his father all
night, but overexcited Stevie had eyes only for Billy and Kit’s tabby cat, who he was obsessed with.
After a bath and a story, which Rosa was delighted to read, she sat in the darkened bedroom with Billy in his little bed and Stevie tucked up and sucking his dummy in Billy’s old cot. She sang lilting Italian lullabies, the very ones her mother had sung to rock her off to sleep when she was a baby. As she sang sweetly in her mother tongue, tears stung the back of Rosa’s eyes.
‘Please God, keep my family safe,’ she prayed fervently.
Once she was sure the boys were fast asleep, she crept, rather bleary-eyed after sitting in the dark for so long, downstairs, which was thick with a rich savoury smell.
‘MEAT?’ she asked incredulously.
Ian, who’d arrived home whilst Rosa was upstairs, laughed. ‘Rabbit shot on the moors,’ he told her. ‘Not by me – I’m a rotten shot – but the farmer across the valley keeps us supplied for a ten-bob note.’ He waved a bottle of wine in the air. ‘He supplies us with this too: damson wine – it’s delicious!’
Sitting around the large scrubbed wooden kitchen table, Rosa and Arthur smoked their cigarettes whilst Ian puffed on his pipe. Kit, who’d been a heavy smoker, declined any offers of a cigarette.
‘Can’t stand the taste of them when I’m pregnant,’ she told her friends. ‘Probably a good thing.’
Ian helped his wife, who waddled uncomfortably under the weight of her burgeoning belly, to set the table.
‘Honest to God I swear Billy was never as big as this one,’ Kit groaned, as she gratefully sat down and let Ian serve out a hearty supper of cabbage, mashed potatoes and rabbit casserole, followed by rice pudding and Kit’s home-grown plums, which she’d bottled in the autumn. At the end of the evening Arthur offered to drive Rosa home in his van.
‘It won’t take more than ten minutes,’ he said when she protested. ‘Anyway, we can’t have you walking home in the dark.’
As they bounced over the moors in the draughty van with no headlights to guide their way, Arthur inquired about Rosa’s wedding plans; she regaled him with her recent visit to meet her future in-laws in Wiltshire.
‘The English middle class,’ he said after she’d laughingly told him about the big cold house and the smelly dogs.
‘We have no such concept in my country,’ Rosa told him. ‘Of course we like our children to continue our traditions but to send them away to be educated, to “toughen them up”, as Roger’s father said, that’s not my way.’
‘Nor mine,’ Arthur exclaimed. ‘I want to teach my son the ways of the world myself, guide him through his early life, and maybe one day, if I meet the right woman and fall in love again, give him a little brother or sister to grow up with.’
Rosa was glad of the surrounding darkness that hid her startled expression. She’d never considered the possibility of Arthur’s marrying again; even after Violet’s death he had always seemed so in love with her that it was impossible to imagine him with another woman.
‘So have you set a date?’ Arthur asked, oblivious to her reaction.
‘No, though Roger would like it to be soon,’ she replied cautiously.
‘And what would you like?’ he asked pointedly.
In truth, Rosa dreaded the thought of living in married quarters in a strange barracks far away from the friends she loved; plus, after her recent rather unsatisfactory time with Roger, she knew she didn’t feel as romantically inclined as she should.
‘Me?’ she asked with a blush. ‘I can’t set a date until I know about Gabriel’s whereabouts; obviously I’d want him beside me on my wedding day,’ she answered; then, before she could stop herself, she blurted out, ‘And, if I’m honest, I’m not ready to leave the Phoenix; it’s the only home I know these days.’
‘Does your fiancé know that?’ Arthur inquired softly.
‘He knows my feelings about Gabriel,’ she said hotly. ‘But he hardly pays attention to them.’
‘Then you need to be clear about what you want,’ Arthur told her firmly before saying with a teasing smile, ‘Though leaving the Phoenix would be a sure way of getting away from Julia!’
Rosa looked him squarely in the eye. ‘You know, Arthur,’ she said sharply, ‘I do have a genuine reason for disliking Julia.’
By the time she’d finished recounting why her friendship with Julia had deteriorated on her London trip, Arthur had pulled up outside the cowshed, which was in total darkness.
‘Hell fire!’ he murmured as he lit up two Pall Mall cigarettes, one for him and one for her. ‘Would you really have boarded a ship for France?’
‘Absolutely! Without a moment’s hesitation,’ she said staunchly.
Slipping an arm around her shoulders, Arthur gave her a squeeze. ‘You’re a brave lass,’ he said softly. ‘I, for one, am glad you didn’t risk it, Rosa. I’m relieved you’re here, safe and well. I’ve had more than enough of losing the people I care about.’
Arthur stubbed out his cigarette, then turned to Rosa. ‘Don’t go doing anything rash like that again,’ he said firmly. ‘Everybody’s saying this war will soon be over; then you can cross the Channel in safety and find your brother.’ Leaning over, Arthur gave Rosa a chaste kiss on her cheek. ‘Goodnight,’ he said softly. ‘Take care of yourself.’
‘Goodnight,’ she replied, touched by his words as she climbed out of the passenger seat.
‘See you on the eighth of May,’ Arthur said, as he started up the engine.
‘The eighth of May?’ she queried.
‘Maggie’s wedding day, remember?’ he teased. ‘God bless,’ he called as he drove away.
Rosa stood outside the front door until the sound of the van’s engine had faded away and Arthur was swallowed up into the darkness of the night.
‘God bless you, Arthur Leadbetter,’ she whispered, turning to go indoors. ‘And keep yourself and little Stevie safe until I see you both again.’
29. The Swap
In order to avoid arousing suspicion, Peter and Nora had to achieve their plan to free Polly and replace her with another pig in a single day. Being hospitalized, Peter wasn’t free to come and go as he chose, which meant that Nora was left with all the work of sourcing another pig, finding a hideaway location for Polly and arranging transport for both animals.
‘I’m sorry, sweetheart, it’s a lot for you to do alone,’ Peter said, as they walked around the hospital grounds with Peter leaning on his stick, whilst his free hand encircled his sweetheart’s waist.
‘It’ll be worth it,’ Nora said with a grin, though her face then grew serious as she considered all that she had to do. ‘Who can I get to drive a truck?’
‘I wish I could,’ Peter said impatiently.
Seeing the disappointment in his face, Nora stopped him in his tracks. ‘Sweetheart, please don’t start getting cranky.’
‘I’m not cranky, just frustrated,’ he admitted, then smiled as he added, ‘Don’t think for a minute I’m not coming with you, Nora.’
‘I’d be a nervous wreck if you weren’t there,’ she assured him.
As they continued their walk, Nora mused, ‘If I could get hold of a truck, I bet Edna could drive it.’
‘Is Edna the one who drives up to your factory in her mobile chip shop?’ Peter inquired.
Nora smiled. ‘She used to come up and cook chips for us Bomb Girls nearly every night; it’s less often these days, now that her daughter and grandchildren are living with her.’
‘You should definitely ask Edna,’ Peter urged. ‘If she can handle a mobile chip shop, she’ll certainly be able to drive a truck.’
‘What’re we going to do about Percy?’ Nora asked.
‘You’re going to have to have a quiet word with him,’ Peter advised. ‘He’ll have to be involved at some stage.’
Nora vehemently shook her head. ‘No!’ she exclaimed. ‘What if he goes and blabs to Maggie? That’d really throw a spanner into the works.’
‘Better to come clean right from the start,’
Peter urged.
‘And what if Percy won’t help us?’
‘We’ll do it anyway,’ Peter answered staunchly. ‘Nobody can stop us buying a pig if we want to – not even Percy!’
Nora leant her head against his shoulder. ‘What would I do without you?’ she said adoringly.
By this time it was common knowledge on the ward that Peter and Nora were ‘walking out’ together. Everyone was delighted by the romantic turn of events, though when Sister asked Nora for a quiet word in private Nora suspected she was going to get a ticking off.
‘I hope you don’t think I’m interfering, dear,’ Sister said as she ushered Nora into her office. ‘It’s just news of your, er, relationship with young Peter Halliday has reached my ears, and I wanted to be sure that you’re aware of what you’re taking on.’
Nora gazed at her dumbfounded. ‘What do you mean?’ she blurted out.
‘Obviously you’re familiar with Peter’s disabilities – after all you’ve been visiting him for some time,’ Sister continued.
Nora, who’d keenly observed Peter’s recovery with pleasure and relief, answered knowledgeably. ‘I know he’s lost the sight in his left eye, and part of his face was blown away, but the surgeon’s doing a great job rebuilding it, and he was lame but now he’s walking, although with a stick, but he’s not stuck in a wheelchair any more.’
Sister smiled at Nora’s flushed, earnest face and her torrent of words. ‘I see you understand the situation perfectly,’ she commented. ‘But, long term, do you think you can cope with Peter’s disabilities?’
Nora felt herself bridle; young and insecure as she was, nothing would make her change her mind when it came to her feelings about Peter.
‘If you mean can I care for a half-blind man with a limp who’s badly scarred, and who I love with all my heart, the answer’s yes!’
By this time Nora, incensed, was almost out of her chair.
‘There, there,’ soothed Sister. ‘I have no intention of dissuading you, Nora. I just wanted to be sure you were aware of what you’re taking on.’
Hearing her reassuring words, Nora slowly sank back into the chair. ‘I thought you were going to tell me to leave the lad alone, and that I wasn’t good enough for him,’ she muttered, close to tears.
